Law

Dead serious about plaintiffs

Article Abstract:

An attorney for the handicapped who stopped litigating problems in her specialty by means of class actions tells of her experiences. She teaches law and while practicing had a number of class actions involving people in institutions. In all of these cases at least one plaintiff died during pendancy of the case. In one of her cases a plaintiff who had waited for more than three decades to leave a Massachusetts institution for the mentally retarded also died during lengthy pretrial procedures, and at this point the attorney stopped taking part in class action litigation.

Employers may be able to defeat some Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) lawsuits if they find that the employee-plaintiff has previously filed for disability. In the cases of McNemar v. The Disney Store, Inc, Kennedy v. Applause, Inc, and August v. Offices Unlimited, Inc, federal courts ruled that employees who had stated that they were completely disabled on previous disability applications could not then file suit under the ADA or any other employment discrimination law, stating that they were qualified to do a job.

The EEOC has sued Rockwell and Cambridge Industries, Inc. for including a nerve conduction test as part of the mandatory medical examination for new hires, and claimed that the company required this test because of concern about its future health care liability should an employee develop carpal tunnel syndrome. The Americans with Disabilities Act permits medical tests for new hires, provided they are job-related and the same test is given to all employees.